NASA Daily News Summary
For Release: Mar. 24, 2000
Media Advisory m00-58
SUMMARY
NEWS RELEASES:
NEXT SPACE SCIENCE UPDATE UNVEILS SIGNIFICANT ADVANCE IN PLANET
HUNTING
NASA'S SUCCESSFUL COMPTON GAMMA-RAY TELESCOPE MISSION COMES TO AN
END
HESSI SUSTAINS DAMAGE DURING VIBRATION TESTING
VIDEO:
VIDEO FILE:
ITEM 1 - INERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - MSFC (replay)
ITEM 2 - IMAGE - GSFC (replay)
LIVE TELEVISION EVENTS THIS WEEK
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LIVE TELEVISION EVENTS THIS WEEK
March 24, Friday
- 6:00 - 10:00 am - Students Help NASA Test International Space
Station Science Communications Live News Interviews - MSFC
- 1:00 pm - Gamma Ray Observatory Press Conference - HQ
- 2:00 pm - IMAGE L-1 Prelaunch Press Conference - Vandenberg Air
Force Base, CA
March 25, Saturday
- 2:00 pm - Live Coverage and Commentary of the IMAGE Launch -
Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA
- 3:35 pm - IMAGE Launch - Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA
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NEWS RELEASES:
NASA'S SUCCESSFUL COMPTON GAMMA-RAY TELESCOPE MISSION COMES TO AN
END
NASA's extremely productive and long-lived Compton Gamma-Ray
Observatory mission -- which exceeded its mission by four years
and completely changed ideas on the most important unsolved
puzzles in astrophysics -- has come to end with the failure of one
of the satellite's three gyroscopes. NASA plans to safely direct
the satellite back into Earth's atmosphere no earlier than June 1
with the remaining two gyroscopes, which are used to steer the
craft. As an extra precaution, Compton engineers are also
developing a method to control the satellite without any
gyroscopes, for use as backup during the reentry maneuvers in case
an anomaly is encountered with the gyroscopes. Compton's lasting
legacy will be its impact on gamma ray astronomy. The telescope
detected more than 400 gamma ray sources, 10 times more than were
previously known. Compton recorded more than 2,500 gamma ray
bursts; before Compton, only about 300 had been detected.
Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC: Dolores Beasley
(Phone 202/358-1753).
Contact at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD: Nancy
Neal (Phone 301/286-0039).
For full text, see:
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-044.txt
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NEXT SPACE SCIENCE UPDATE UNVEILS SIGNIFICANT ADVANCE IN PLANET
HUNTING
The renowned team of planet-hunting astronomers, Geoffrey
Marcy and Paul Butler, will announce a breakthrough in detecting
planets outside our Solar System at the next Space Science Update
(SSU), scheduled for Wednesday, March 29, at 1 p.m. EST. The
NASA- and National Science Foundation-sponsored research was
conducted at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC: Donald Savage
(Phone 202/358-1547).
Contact at University of California, Berkeley, CA: Robert Sanders
(Phone: 510/643-6998).
Contact at W.H. Keck Observatory, Kamuela, HI: Andrew Perala
(Phone: 808/885-7887).
For full text, see:
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/note2edt/2000/n00-012.txt
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HESSI SUSTAINS DAMAGE DURING VIBRATION TESTING
NASA's High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager spacecraft --
an international mission to explore the basic physics of particle
acceleration and energy release in solar flares -- has sustained
substantial damage during vibration testing. Repairs to the
spacecraft, known as HESSI, will likely delay its launch to no
earlier than January 2001.
Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC: Dolores Beasley
(Phone 202/358-1753).
Contact at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD: Mark Hess
(Phone: 301/286-8982).
Contact at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA: Mary
Beth Murrill (Phone 818/354-5011).
For full text, see:
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-045.txt
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If NASA issues any news releases later today, we will e-
mail summaries and Internet URLs to this list.
Index of 2000 NASA News Releases:
http://www.nasa.gov/releases/2000/index.html
Index of 1999 NASA News Releases:
http://www.nasa.gov/releases/1999/index.html
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VIDEO:
Unless otherwise noted, ALL TIMES ARE EASTERN.
ANY CHANGES TO THE VIDEO LINE-UP WILL APPEAR ON THE NASA VIDEO
FILE ADVISORY ON THE WEB AT
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/tv-advisory/nasa-tv.txt
WE UPDATE THE ADVISORY THROUGHOUT THE DAY.
The NASA Video File normally airs at noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., 9 p.m.
and midnight Eastern Time.
NASA Television is available on GE-2, transponder 9C at 85 degrees
West longitude, with vertical polarization. Frequency is on 3880.0
megahertz, with audio on 6.8 megahertz.
Refer general questions about the video file to NASA Headquarters,
Washington, DC: Ray Castillo, 202/358-4555, or Fred Brown,
202/358-0713, fred.brown@hq.nasa.gov
During Space Shuttle missions, the full NASA TV schedule will
continue to be posted at:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/nasatv/schedule.html
For general information about NASA TV see:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/
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Contract Awards
Contract awards are posted to the NASA Acquisition information
Service Web site: http://procurement.nasa.gov/EPS/award.html
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end of daily news summary